Stuart Pawson - The Mushroom Man

"Guess what?" he challenged us.

"What?" I demanded, deflating him with a word.

"Er, Janet Dewhurst's will. She left most of it in trust for Georgina.

Miles Dewhurst might call himself managing director, but he's still just a glorified employee."

Maggie, Sparky, Gilbert and myself sat and stared at him, our jaws drooping at various degrees, like sea lions waiting for the keeper to toss a fish to us. Slowly Nigel's face sank, as if his master had taken the stick from him and used it to beat him.

"What did I say?" he wondered aloud.

Raymond Chedgrave could see Miss Jonas's cottage from where he stood.

He wondered for a moment if the rumours about her and Father Harcourt were true, then turned back to his barley. He cast his expert eye over the expanse of it and smiled with satisfaction. This was the most widely grown crop in Britain. Some went for feed and some was destined for the brewing industry, but the best the fattest, purest grain was held back to use as seed for next year's crop. It fetched the highest price, and Raymond Chedgrave had over a thousand acres of it.

Before being accepted as seed it would be rigorously tested to verify that it was uncontaminated with wild oats or any other weed.

Generations of what was regarded as good husbandry had banished the poppy and corn cockle from these fields, but the wild oat was a common intruder, brought in by impure seed. It was easy to detect, standing a foot taller than the barley, but the sterile brome was much more difficult to tackle. That was what Chedgrave was looking for this morning.

He'd started walking the fields as soon as the rising sun had burned off the dew, up and down the waving waist-high rows. The corn was as clean as a weasel's molars. He'd knock off now, he decided, and go back to Home Farm for a bite to eat. Maybe he'd have another couple of hours tomorrow; the weather looked like holding. He made a mental note of where he'd reached, then started working his way back to the Land Rover.

A covey of red-legged partridge suddenly whirred and clattered into the air from almost under his feet. Farmer Chedgrave was startled for a second, but he recovered immediately and raised his arms as if holding an imaginary gun and followed the path of the fleeing birds.

"P-chow!" he cried, and the pretend shotgun kicked upwards with the recoil. He didn't do much shooting, but the season had started and a brace of partridge would make a pleasant change of menu. He'd bring a proper gun tomorrow.

As he moved on, his foot tangled with something and he sprawled full-length into his barley. His ankle was held fast and hurting. For a second he thought he must have stepped into a gin trap. He rolled over on to his back to see.

It was a bicycle. His left ankle was jammed through the spokes of the front wheel of an old bike.

"Holy cow!" he muttered. "I've found the Father's bike!"

The vanishing of Father Harcourt was the best piece of gossip to hit the village since the post mistress was prosecuted for growing marijuana. The police had walked all the drainage ditches looking to see if he'd ridden off the road, and a helicopter had scoured much of the local countryside. Then the momentum had waned and it was left to the passing of the seasons or the tides to reveal his whereabouts. PC Donald Watson was sent in response to Farmer Chedgrave's agitated phone call. He made a positive identification of the bicycle and radioed for further help.

Two hours later Sergeant Morgan Davis deployed his team of two constables in the road adjacent to the barley field.

"What exactly is it we're looking for, Sarge?" asked one of them.

Davis surveyed the antiseptic landscape with distaste. "Anything suspicious, boyo," he replied. "That means that if it's not grass and it's not gravel, put it in a bag and label it. I'll be back at the station, directing operations, so to speak. Radio in if you find anything."

He climbed into the panda car and drove off. A few seconds down the road his eyes made an habitual flick towards the rear-view mirror.

Young Watson was standing in the road waving his arms, trying to attract his attention. The Sergeant stamped on the brakes, slammed into reverse and rocketed back towards him in a storm of tyre smoke and flying stones.

"What do you reckon to this, Sarge?" PC Watson asked.

Davis bent over to see where the constable was pointing. Lying in the grass at the edge or the road was a windscreen wiper arm. He carefully extricated it and held it between his fingertips. Stamped into the metal was the word: VOLVO.

"This, Donald, is what we more experienced police officers call a clue," said the Sergeant.

"A clue, Sarge. I'll remember that. I've got two of them on my car."

His face glowed so brightly with pride, you could have marked a roadworks with it.

"And will you be looking at this," said Davis, pointing at the wiper with his little finger. Plainly visible along one edge were flakes of blue paint. "Nearly as good as his name and address, that is."

"So we're looking for the owner of a blue Volvo, eh, Sarge?"

Davis nodded. "Carry on at this rate, Donald my boy, and you could be joining the detectives. Now, will you be handing me one of them plastic bags I know you're carrying."

Next day the search party brought in from divisional HQ found Father Harcourt's body, or what the rats and maggots had left of it.

I took Maggie to talk with Wylie, the solicitor, and we put our Mr. and Mrs. Nasty heads on. We'd let Nigel carry on being Mr. Nice. Wylie told us that under the terms of the will left by Janet Dewhurst her husband drew a salary and a percentage of the profits until Georgina was eighteen. The rest was held in trust for her. Then, providing he had remained unmarried, they split the company fifty-fifty.

"Mrs. Dewhurst was quite adamant about the marriage clause," Wylie told us. "She was determined that Georgina would not be brought up by a stepmother."

He was not so forthcoming when I queried him about Dewhurst's efforts to raise the ransom money. I gave him the look that said I was thinking about pushing burning matchsticks under his fingernails and he opened up slightly. He confessed that, as trustees, his firm had given Dewhurst permission to look for a buyer or do some hefty borrowing.

"Can you do that?" I asked.

He looked embarrassed and fidgeted with a fountain pen. "We consider we are acting in the best interests of our clients," he said.

"Both of them?" I demanded.

"Yes, Inspector, both of them. If a life is at risk we feel that we would not be acting as responsible trustees if we did not act to save that life."

"In that case I want you to withdraw the permission. We can supply the money."

"I'm afraid it may be too late for that, Inspector," he replied.

I asked him for a copy of the will and we drove back to the office.

Every morning the Superintendent holds what we call his morning prayer meeting. I informed the gathered brains of Heckley nick of the latest developments.

"Suddenly it's all falling into place," said Gilbert "Do you think you've enough to bring him in? Maybe if we turned his love nest over, leaned on his girlfriend."

"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," I answered. "He's been scrupulous so far, I doubt if he's left any muck in his own kennel. Plus he's got the press on his side. Arresting the distraught father wouldn't be good for my image if it didn't stick."

"You could be right, Charlie. If he doesn't think he's a suspect, let's give him all the line he needs. Mind you, the Acting Chief Constable might not agree when I give him a progress report."

"Trevor Partridge," I replied. "Leave him to me. I got him that job.

If Dewhurst is convicted on circumstantial evidence he'll spend the rest of his life protesting his innocence writing books and articles in his cell. Three-quarters of the population will believe him. And that's providing we'd convinced a jury first. Let's hang on and find some forensic When he goes down, I want him to have lead in his shoes '